The apparatus described herein relates generally to a staking tool. More specifically, the apparatus relates to a staking tool that can simultaneously stake a twist-lock device in two places within a confined space in a turbomachine.
Gas turbines generally include a compressor rotor having a number of stages. Air flowing into the compressor is compressed at each stage. Each stage includes a number of rotor blades mounted to a rim of a rotor wheel in a spaced relationship. A typical compressor rotor may have dozens of rotor blades mounted thereon. A turbine section also has a number of stages, and a number of rotor blades are mounted to a rotor wheel in a spaced relationship. Nozzles are located between the turbine's rotor stages and one pair of adjacent blades and nozzles makes up a stage of the turbine section. As examples only, a turbine section may have three or four stages, and the space between neighboring rotor blade stages is limited. This limited or confined space makes it difficult to work on the rotor blade stage.
Generally described, each blade may have a dovetailed portion that interlocks with a dovetail region of the wheel to secure the blade to the rotor. The blade dovetails may be designed to cooperate with a twist-lock device that secures the blade to the rotor. The twist-lock device is installed in the dovetail of the wheel first and then the blade is installed. The twist-lock device is then rotated 180 degrees to prevent the blade from moving axially. The head of the twist-lock must then be staked to prevent it from rotating. This process is then repeated for each rotor blade for each rotor stage.
Staking becomes difficult in specific stages due to the confined space. For example, in stages two and three there is only a small distance between the stage three rotor blade/wheel and the preceding stage two rotor blade/wheel. This limited distance makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to strike a staking tool with a hammer while both rotor blade stages are present. The length of the staking tool plus the length of the hammer is often close to or greater than the length of the stage-to-stage distance, making a suitable hammer swing impossible. In many cases it is unfeasible, undesired or uneconomical to remove the preceding stage's rotor blades when staking the forward side of the twist-locks. In addition, for the last stage it may also be impractical to remove the exhaust frame or associated exhaust elements if one desires to stake the aft side of the last stage's twist-locks.